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Warm salad with fresh herring

Already more than 9 months since we’re living here in Sweden and I still haven’t presented to you a recipe with herring, shame on me! Because Sweden is the country of herring! We can find it flavoured with a lot of different things: lemon & dill, mustard, with some small onions, and so on. Some fresh jars, which contain herrings ready to be eaten are put on tables for each Swedish celebration: midsommar (celebration for the beginning of summer), Jul (Christmas), etc. And I would eat it everyday, I love it so much!

But this time, I was tempted by some fresh herring. Absolutely no idea of how to prepare it, it was a complete improvisation but a successful one that I definitely wanted to share with you! So "au menu", it will be a "warm salad with fresh herring" and to make it, you will need:

6 herring fillets

2-3 potatoes

Some capers

Half of an apple

Some green salad

A French dressing of choice (vinegar, mustard and nut oil for me)

Some salt, olive oil and lemon

A few hours before eating, we take care of the herrings:

Remove their skin just by pulling it. Cut the herrings in big pieces and pour an olive oil & lemon juice mixture on it (as much as you want!). And then let it marinate for 2 or 3 hours in the fridge.

About 30 minutes before eating, we pre-cook the potatoes:

Peel and dice the potatoes. Cook them for 10 minutes into some salty boiling water.

Then, heat a frying pan with a bit of olive oil and brown the cooked potatoes for about 15 minutes, on a medium heat. Don’t forget to mix the potatoes during the cooking to make them well brown on each side. Add some salt at the last time, just before preparing the plates.

In the meantime, peel and dice a half apple. You can put some lemon juice on it to keep its beautifully coloured.

Now let’s get back to our herrings:

About 5 minutes before the potatoes are well brown, add the marinated herring pieces and cook them just to brown them a bit.

Just have to preparing the plates now!

Put the green salad on the plate, pour the French dressing, put the fresh apple pieces, the warm salty potatoes and then the pieces of herring, sprinkle with as much as capers you want and it’s done!

SERVING SUGGESTIONS

Here is a beautiful “salade composée”, perfect for a light meal. With smaller quantities, you can also make some little nice starters too! I really enjoyed this dish: a mix of textures with the crunchy apples and the soft herring, a mix between a salty flavour and (slightly) sweet one and a warm/cold that I like!